China Minimum wage (no national rate — province-set; highest is Shanghai)
China Minimum wage (no national rate — province-set; highest is Shanghai): no single figure applies. The reason is set out below, cited to the governing instrument. Last checked against the official source on 23 Jul 2026.
STRUCTURAL: China has NO single national minimum wage. Under the Minimum Wage Regulations (最低工资规定, Ministry of Labour & Social Security Order No.21, 2004, administered by the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security / MOHRSS), each province, autonomous region and municipality sets and revises its own minimum wage — commonly in multiple sub-provincial classes/tiers — on its own schedule. This series carries no national figure; the structure and the current national HIGHEST (Shanghai, monthly) are reported instead.
| Current value | no single figure |
|---|---|
| In force from | — |
| Official source | 上海市人力资源和社会保障局关于调整本市最低工资标准的通知 — 自2025年7月1日起，月最低工资标准由2690元调整为2740元，小时最低工资标准由24元调整为25元 (Shanghai MHRSS notice, 14 Jul 2025: from 1 Jul 2025 monthly minimum wage raised 2,690->2,740 yuan, hourly 24->25 yuan) |
| Last verified | 2026-07-23 |
| Verification | primary — No verification limitation recorded — read from the official source cited. |
| Provenance | source fingerprint |
What this value means
No national minimum wage exists — establishing this positively: the 2004 Minimum Wage Regulations delegate the setting of both a MONTHLY minimum (for full-time workers) and an HOURLY minimum (for part-time workers) to each provincial-level government, which files them with MOHRSS; MOHRSS only PUBLISHES the aggregated table of all regions, it does not set a single figure. Rates therefore differ widely by region and, within many provinces, by district tier. HIGHEST MONTHLY rate nationwide: Shanghai, CNY 2,740/month (hourly CNY 25), effective 1 Jul 2025 — a sub-2% rise from CNY 2,690, Shanghai's smallest annual increase in over a decade. Shanghai's monthly figure excludes overtime pay, shift/heat/hazard allowances, meal/transport/housing subsidies, and the employee's own social-insurance and housing-fund contributions. Beijing carries the highest HOURLY rate. At the low end, several provinces sit around CNY 1,700–2,000/month. value is null by design (structural, per the country-file spec's structural-null rule); serve the Shanghai figure from notes if a single headline number is required. MOHRSS publishes the full 31-region comparison table periodically (most recently mid-Jan 2026).
Get it programmatically
curl https://asiaref.dev/v1/cn/minimum-wage
# $0.005 per call — x402 on Base (USDC). No key, no signup.
# History: curl https://asiaref.dev/v1/cn/minimum-wage/history?from=2020-01-01
# Provenance: curl https://asiaref.dev/provenance/cn/minimum-wageOther China series: PBOC Loan Prime Rate (1-year LPR / 贷款市场报价利率) · VAT standard rate (增值税基本税率) · VAT registration threshold · Public holidays (国家法定节假日 + State Council annual arrangement) · CPI inflation (year-on-year, 居民消费价格指数) · Enterprise Income Tax standard rate (企业所得税) · Withholding tax rates · Statutory default interest (法定利率 / 逾期利息) · Individual Income Tax · Statutory social-insurance contributions
The same figure elsewhere: Hong Kong · India · Indonesia · Iraq · Israel · all 28